Bel Banta

Author

Bel Banta is a fourth year English major from New York. When she's in the city, she spends too much time browsing for books at the Strand. When she's in Charlottesville, she spends too much time reading the books that she bought at the Strand. For more of Bel's writing, visit belbanta.com.

February 24, 2019

Art by Kirsten Hemrich

There is a website I used to frequent called “Who’s Dated Who." Its purpose is exactly what it sounds like: to inform us mortals about the love lives of the rich and famous. In the murky depths of this website I have discovered Cher once dated Tom Cruise, Zac Efron once had an “encounter” with Lindsay Lohan, and that learning about celebrity love lives is an easy and addictive way to avoid the complexities of your own.

February 12, 2019

Art by Kirsten Hemrich

My dad is sitting across from me eating Eggos. He doesn’t eat them gracefully. They are stuffed into his mouth, loudly chewed, sugars clinging onto fat as they enter his bloodstream. I imagine my dad’s body is made of all the unhealthy things: corn syrup, GMO’s, candy bars. He’s had cancer already, but it’s no fault of ambiguous FDA regulations or the orange soda he sips casually as he watches Fox & Friends. “It’s inevitable,” he says.

November 13, 2018

I wake up alone in bed. A winter chill has somehow drifted through the window I struggled to shut the night before. All I can do is pull the covers around me and huddle for warmth.

Yet the cold space next to me seems to have grown in size. Any body heat that my sweatshirt has managed to contain seems to vanish rapidly. The thought comes unbidden, as if it has leapt into existence in some lonely, barren part of my mind. “Do I want something---or rather someone---here with me?” ...

October 31, 2018

Art by Kirsten Hemrich

She raised the tequila to her lips and tilted her head back. It would take some time for the confidence to set in, so she waited.

“I have a paper due tomorrow. I don’t really give a shit. I’m going to wake up early to finish up my conclusion,” said the guy standing next to her at the bar. He had bought her the shots, roping her into a conversation she had no desire to be apart of.

October 08, 2018

Art by Kirsten Hemrich

The hypochondria comes at night. Always at night.

She slithers in through the window along with the breeze. The air that was once fresh becomes rancid and noxious. Fumes of anxiety and self-doubt twist and hang in the air. “You should Google your symptoms,” she whispers, her voice soft and soothing. “It will help.” She strokes my arm lovingly and curls against my chest.

September 25, 2018

Art by Kirsten Hemrich

On a crisp, sunshine-and-laughter kind of day, I break up with my boyfriend.

PMS sneaks up on me this way. I wake up, and suddenly it’s there, an invisible hand guiding me to do things my non-PMSing self would never think to do. My PMS laughs at me in the mirror and pinches my love handles. It goads me to send a text that is too dramatic. It spoon-feeds me sugar and angst, pats my stomach when I feel like I’m about to throw up. It’s as if I’m under some emotion-swelling drug that my doctor...